Home made Chiller Instructions, works a treat!

On my travel through the web, looking for a chiller, I came across these instructions, and it works great, once you get the temp down. http://www.reefs.org/diy/diy11.html Much better than floating bottles of water, and takes away the chance of contaminating the tank water if a bottle splits. I have on order some Gel pax from www.techniice.com which I believe will create a better chilling environment.
I have place the inlet part of the tube, into a container, (plastic drinking glass) with rocks in it, this serves to not only keep the tubing in the water, but cut down on the speed of the water flow, so as not to upset the axies and for this reason I have the power head turned to it's lowest setting as well. This for me has proved to be a cheaper alternative to real chiller, I just can't afford a real chiller at the mo. Hopefully it will also help others.

I have plenty of styrafone boxs all over my house. (my family uses them to store whole animals like pigs and lambs etc to each for speciel occasions, what do you suspect im a wog, lol) But i may sugest, screw the icepacks, too much work. Get bags of ice from the petrol staion, costs only like $2 a bag and that'l last you ages.

we plan on doing this with an icebox and bags of ice in salt water... apparently an icebox keeps ice frozen for 3 or 4 days, and with the salt it will be even colder.
storing whole animals in styrafome boxes made me laugh... we live on property and my husband is lebanese. just imagine the entire animals we end up with stored! lol

Ice melts over night... and I would say even faster during the day, but I used the icepacks during the day, it does the job great, but it would cost you a fortune keeping up the supply, that's why i have opted for the Gel pacs that has link attached on my original post.
The stay frozen for days, and they can be wrapped around the tubing... The principle of this do it yourself is great, but needs modifying to suit the lower temps axies prefer, but is still cheaper that a Chiller. And that's great when one can't afford a chiller.. Smiles
Have fun guys, and hopefully this hot humid Brisbane weather will be over soon

I diversified a little on the "ingredients" to suit what I had laying around the house. Took about half an hour to set up and goes like this . . .

12 volt Submersible pond/water feature pump ($9.95 from hardware store)

5mm plastic tubing - 2mtrs

Small Cooler Bag (30cm x 20cm x 15cm)

Ice bricks/frozen water bottles I was using to float in the tank.

The pump has suction cups on the bottom and I stuck it onto the inside of the tank glass (obviously) just below the water surface. Then ran the tubing I attached to the pump (5mm fitted the pump I had) into the cooler bag and coiled it around and between the freezer bricks - same fashion as described on the above link from Jenny. Back out and into the tank.

Hopefully my ignorance on the true definition of a "Power Head" has not meant a wasted post talking about the exact same thing. But, to me, a $10 submersible pump is a lot more affordable than the $900 I have been quoted for a chiller.

Big HUGS and LOVES to Jenny from me and Lotle and Falkor! Thanks a million for finding this little gem for us all

Yes Joanne you are virtually talking about the same thing.. smiles... but you were clever, because it seems you came up with the idea yourself, and the cooler bag was really clever.. smiles...
I wasn't clever enough to think of it myself, so hats off to you. Smiles
Yes I agree heaps more affordable than a chiller... but as Axie lovers, we want to do the best we can for our babies... smiles..

I have a simular set up for my tank. I used a foam esky (the really cheap ones with the rope handle). In the esky, i have a plastic container that is the same size as the esky and i put 2 holes in the sides (one at opposite ends-do this for the esky too). Through this i ran a length of that pre-coiled tubing that people use for air guns etc. Then i used silicone to put the tubing through the holes. I have little metal tubing connections that u can connect or disconnect the tubing in the container to the tubing that will run to and from the filter. I filled the plastic container up with water and put it in the freezer so the water will freeze around the tubing. This way u have a big block of ice that takes longer to melt compared to lots of ice cubes (surface area to volume ratio). I made 2 of these, that way while one container is in the freezer the other container can be used on the tank. The only problem is you have to make sure you get all the water out the tubing when you put it in the freezer or it wont work.

Well, it seems that between us all, we will have cool HAPPY little Axolotls! And $$$ left to feed them and ourselves LOL

I am gonna borrow some ideas off everyone and hopefully with some minor changes have a much more efficient set up by the end of the day.

Goodluck to all! And I must say again, this forum is AWESOME

thats a great idea!. such a good alternative for a expensive chiller. i might try it aswell, even though the temp here never gets as hot as aus it still reaches 24-26 on some hot days.

Do you think this set up would work with a reasonably small tank? My tank is only about 56 litres (I think thats 10 gallons). Would the current be too severe if the tank was this small do you think?

im guessing you could use a filter with less power. You would not need the tube to be in the ice for as long so it wouldn't matter much. You could also try putting the water back in the tank via a spray bar.

Has anyone tried this yet? Wondering how much water gets wound up in 20 metres of tubing?

I have a HOB filter at the moment, so it would mean yet another purchase (that I'm trying to avoid!) so i think it'll be icepacks for now.

Umm . . . It's 20 - 30 FEET of tubing which in metric equals 6 to 9 METERS. Please don't think I am being rude, it would just be more expensive to buy 20 meters rather than 6 meters.

Anyhow, doing rough calculations, 6 meters of 1.5 cm tubing would hold 450ml of water - just under half a litre.

Hope this helps

Ahh right (late night here in nsw!)

That sounds more practical!

Hey guys,
It's great to see everybody,s suggestion and idea's that could improve on this basic idea.

I have discovered that the Techniice gel pacs are not a good as I had originally hoped though they do help to keep the environment in the styrofoam box, cooler, they do thaw within a couple of hours, unlike the promo for them says a couple of days, but I guess, they are not expecting someone to use them in the manner I am.

So as I said in an earlier post in this thread, the principle is great, and make cooling the tank cheaper, and safer (no chance of split bottle in the tank) but still needs fine tuning, I am able though to keep the tank temp at 18 to 20 degrees, so that is good, even if I would like it cooler... smiles... Annoying though the first night I used it, the temp over night dropped to about 16 degrees i was so happy u know, but have been unable to achieve such a good result since. Though I keep refining the plan... and eventually because I am determined... and stubborn giggles.. I will get there...

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Christine wrote on Sunday, 12 February, 2006 - 01:32 :</font>

"Do you think this set up would work with a reasonably small tank? My tank is only about 56 litres (I think thats 10 gallons). Would the current be too severe if the tank was this small do you think?"<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
No it wouldn't be too severe, read in my original post how I over came the outflow problem, smiles.
Or use the spray bar idea as suggest by Cheryl
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Cheryl wrote on Sunday, 12 February, 2006 - 01:51 :</font>

"im guessing you could use a filter with less power. You would not need the tube to be in the ice for as long so it wouldn't matter much. You could also try putting the water back in the tank via a spray bar."<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
The spray bar is a wonderful idea for helping to reduce the water flow. A Filter and a power head are two different things. A filter cleans your tank water, in this instance a power head pumps the water and doesn't technically filter it.
The water needs to be flowing through the tubing and a rate fast enough to not let the water in the tank get to warm again before the cooler water gets to it and slow enough to stay in the ice long enough to chill that's why there is so much tubing.. so it chills Smiles

wow! i got to this pretty late!
i was doing sumthing along these lines lol, i had a styrophome esky put enough tank water in it to cover my babies prolly 3cm more so they could swim a bit more, and i would use ice bricks and it cooled the water down very good. to like 13 c. i would change them when i got up and when i went to bed, and it keeps my babies happy, but this idea is really good
im gonna do it lol
:thumbs up: wooo